


Daddy Go Juice

by mrs_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Captain America Sam Wilson, Domestic, House Husband Steve Rogers, Kid Fic, M/M, Sam Wilson Can Talk to Birds, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 12:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19273609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Morning in the Wilson-Rogers house.





	Daddy Go Juice

**Author's Note:**

> Working on WIPs is hard, so here, have some SamSteve kid fic. Special thanks to the Sam Wilson Discord for encouraging this! Also, a huge shout-out to my brother, who unwittingly inspired this story because he calls coffee Daddy Go Juice now that he has a kid, and I think that's freaking adorable.

Steve jolted awake. For a second, he had no idea why. Then he heard it again: a clatter in the kitchen. Before making a conscious decision to do so, he was on his feet, reaching for his weapon. But it wasn’t there, because of course it wasn’t. He didn’t sleep with a gun beside his bed anymore — for reasons that were reinforced a second later.

“Oops,” said a tiny voice.

“Charlie,” Steve sighed. He checked his watch — 6:15, of course. She wasn’t related to them by blood, but she’d definitely inherited her fathers’ military habit of waking up with the sun. How she’d gotten out of her room was a mystery, but parenthood — even more than the serum, or the war, or being frozen — had taught Steve that nothing was impossible.

He cast a wistful look at the bed, and husband, that he was leaving behind. Sam was shirtless and on his stomach, one arm clutching the pillow that was smushed against his face. His mouth was half-open in a way that Steve knew Sam would be embarrassed by, but Steve thought he was adorable. And beautiful. Since he’d taken over as Captain America, Sam had bulked out some, but, more than that, there was something about him that changed — like he had a light inside, and it was only getting brighter. Steve found himself more attracted to him every day.

And on days after he came home from a mission, Steve wanted nothing more than to let him sleep. Which was why he needed to get to the kitchen ASAP and stop Hurricane Charlie from doing more damage than she already had.

He realized, as soon as he stepped into the room, that that was impossible. Somehow, the three-year-old had managed to open every drawer and cupboard within her reach, except for the ones that had baby locks on them, where they kept the garbage and cleaning supplies. Steve had rearranged their kitchen two years ago, when they got word that the adoption was finalized, so nothing breakable was in the lower cabinets, but what that meant was that all of their plastic containers, table linens, and canned goods were now spread all over the floor.

And right in the middle of it was Charlie, pouring their last bag of coffee into a pile at her feet.

Steve ran his hands over his face and allowed himself ten seconds to be at a complete loss. This was probably what he deserved for letting Charlie “help” him empty the dishwasher last night, and for leaving the coffee on the counter yesterday morning instead of putting it away like he should have.

But what was done was done, and all he could do now was to deal with it. As a parent, he knew he ought to stop her, clean up the mess, and explain what was wrong with this behavior. As a man who woke up literally two minutes ago, he wanted to ignore the whole thing and make Charlie go back to bed. But that would only end in tears — once Charlie was awake, it was hard to get her back to sleep — and tears would mean Sam waking up at 6:30 on the morning after a three-day mission, and that was unacceptable.   

“What are you doing, honey?” he asked finally.

“Breakfast,” Charlie said, like it was obvious. “Juice,” she added a second later.

“You want juice?” Steve eyed the dishes on the floor with dismay. He honestly wasn’t sure if he had a clean sippy cup to offer her.

“Daddy Go Juice,” Charlie clarified.

“Right,” Steve sighed. “Daddy Go Juice.”

Daddy Go Juice was his and Sam’s joking term for coffee — the coffee that was now all over the floor. Too bad, too, since Steve’s head was already starting to pound.

“Okay,” he said after a minute of watching Charlie draw swirls in the spilled coffee grounds with her finger. “Okay, we need to clean this up, then, come on.”

Thus began one of the toughest missions of Steve’s career. For every dish he rinsed, Charlie threw another one on the ground. For every one he put away, Charlie took a new one out. And when he told her to stop, she got defiant, her little chin jutting out in that way that always made Sam ask if they were sure she wasn’t related to Steve somehow.

Rather than fight with her — and risk a tantrum that would wake Sam up — Steve grabbed the playpen from the living room and set it up in the only part of the kitchen floor that was clean. Then he grabbed the broom.

“Sweep, sweep,” said Charlie as he went by.

“Sweep, sweep,” Steve agreed.

Tilting the dustpan full of coffee into the trash caused him physical pain: he knew how much this coffee cost, and he swore he could feel the weight of each penny. Sam would give him a hard time about that if he were awake, because of course they had enough money to buy more, but that wasn’t the point. Steve hated wasting food.

While Charlie babbled to her toys in the playpen, Steve finished cleaning up the disaster zone and made them some breakfast. Charlie made more mess as she ate, and Steve cleaned it up, and as he did, he considered his options. It was now almost 9; Sam would be up soon, and he’d need his caffeine fix. He could put Charlie in the stroller and walk up the street to the only store in town, but even he wasn’t fond of the corner store coffee, and he grew up drinking “burned ass water” (Sam’s words), so it definitely wouldn’t do for self-professed coffee snob Sam Wilson.

The next town over had a Starbucks, but that wasn’t Sam’s favorite, either. His favorite was the kind that Charlie had used for art practice this morning. Sam bought it online, where it was much cheaper, but they did carry it at the grocery store — one tiny, overpriced bag at a time. Going that route would mean wrestling Charlie into the car seat, though, and Steve knew there was no way he could pull that off without waking Sam up.

“Redwing,” said Charlie suddenly, loud and gleeful.

Steve turned to find Sam’s falcon swooping in through the window, back from his morning hunt. Thankfully, he didn’t bring his kill with him; Sam had a talk with him about how eating fluffy creatures in front of their offspring was upsetting in the human world. Steve got the impression that it took Redwing a long time to catch on, but he’d been better about it lately.

“Redwing,” Charlie cried again. She was at the very edge of the playpen, so Steve hustled over and lifted her out.

Redwing consented to having his feathers stroked exactly twice, and then he fluttered up out of Charlie’s grasp. As Steve put Charlie back in the playpen, Redwing let out a quiet screech.

“What?” Steve asked, turning.

The bird sent a pointed look at the coffee pot, then cocked his head in the direction of the bedroom.

“Yeah, I know,” Steve told him. “We’re out.”

Redwing clicked his beak a few times. Steve knew from Sam’s translations that that usually meant he was annoyed. Redwing was overly protective of his human — Steve still wasn’t sure that he approved of their marriage — and he was always vying for Sam’s approval.  

Which gave Steve an idea. “Can you fly to the store for me?” he asked.

If Redwing had human eyebrows, he would have raised one, Steve was sure of it.

“For Sam,” he amended quickly. “So he can have some coffee when he gets up.”

Redwing didn’t blink, instead holding eye contact with Steve.

“Please?” Steve added.

Redwing shuffled on his perch. Charlie reached out again. Her little arms came nowhere near him, of course, but Redwing clicked his beak again. He wasn’t very fond of their having a child, either, though Steve had seen him protect Charlie like she was his own.

 _It’s like an older brother-little sister dynamic,_ Sam had described the bird’s attitude. _He cares about her, but he finds her pretty annoying a lot of the time._ Steve had never had a sister, but he could see it.

“Come on,” Steve said. He gestured at Charlie, who was using the walls of her playpen to demonstrate how she got over the baby gate this morning. “You want Sam to wake up and have to deal with this without coffee?” Steve asked.

Redwing kept staring.

“Redwing,” Charlie half-wailed. She shook the soft railing of the playpen. “Come back!”

“Fine,” said Steve. Charlie was getting frantic, so he rolled his eyes at the bird and lifted her away. They headed to the living room, where they sat on the floor to play with some big blocks.

A soft rustle of feathers told him that Redwing had followed. He settled on the blue rocking horse in the corner to watch them. He was out of Charlie’s eye line, but he looked right at Steve.

“What?” Steve demanded after a minute, unable to stand his glare. “What do you want?”

It was like Redwing was waiting for him to ask. He hopped down from the rocking horse in a very non-falcon way and strode towards Charlie’s toy box. He rattled through the items, drawing Charlie’s attention; Steve had to grab her to keep her from chasing after the bird.

“What’s he doing?” she asked, when she finally stopped squirming. The words came out more like _what-ee-doin,_ but Steve was fluent in toddler by now.

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “Important bird stuff, I guess.”

“Bird stuff,” Charlie repeated, with the air of someone wise beyond her years.

Redwing emerged a minute later with a rattle that Steve hadn’t seen in months. It was shiny on the back, like a convex mirror.

“What are you doing with that?” Steve asked him.

Redwing shook the rattle and gave him a withering look. All at once, Steve remembered Redwing eyeing the rattle covetously when Charlie was much smaller.

“You want it?” Steve asked.

The bird shook the rattle again, which Steve took as an affirmative.

“Only if you get the coffee,” Steve reminded him. He took out his wallet and held up a $20 bill. “Deal?”

Redwing set down the rattle, glared at Charlie for good measure, and took the money in his beak. Steve ran his hands over Redwing’s feathers the way he’d seen Sam do a hundred times, and Redwing took off for the kitchen window.

Steve turned back to find Charlie heading for the rattle. “Mine,” she protested, when Steve picked it up. He placed it on top of the bookshelf where she’d never reach it.

“Mine,” Charlie said again, with a huffing breath that Steve knew was a precursor to exaggerated tears.

Steve grabbed one of her coloring books and sat down with her again. “Let’s make a nice picture for Daddy instead,” he suggested, opening a box of crayons. “Here, pick the prettiest color you can find.”

Thankfully, the distraction was enough. All traces of the impending tantrum disappeared as Charlie focused on the task before her. Steve breathed out a small sigh of relief and sat down beside her at the tiny table.

Soon, Sam would be awake to share this Sunday morning with him, and soon they would have coffee on the sun-drenched porch, while their kid made mud pies in the backyard, and their other, sort-of kid played with his shiny new toy high up in his nest.

Not bad for Father’s Day, Steve thought with a smile. Not bad at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Encourage my procrastination and send me SamSteve prompts! You can find me on Twitter (mrs_dawnaway), Discord (mrsdawnaway), or Dreamwidth (mrs_d).


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